Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-05-14
MORALLY DEAD

MORALLY DEAD
The longest rail train that ever ran
over the Erie or Hudson tracks was
not long enough or large enough to
carry the beastliness and the putrefac-
ton which have been gathered up in
bad books and newspapers of this land
in the last twenty years.
Now, it is amid such circumstances
that i put, this morning, "A question oi
overmastering Importance to you and
your families. What books and ews
papers shall we readp You see |
group them together. A newspaper is
only a book in II swifter and mor port
able shape, and the same rules which
will apply to book reading will apply
To newspaper reading. What shall we
readP Shall our minds be the recep-
tacle of everything that an author has
a mind to writer Shall there be NJ
distinction between the tree of life and
the tree of DEATH Shall we stoop down
and drink out of the trough which the
wickedness of men has filled with
POLLUTION AND sHAMEp
Shall we mire in impurity. and chase
fantastic will-o'-the-wisps across the
swamps. when we might walk in the
blooming gardens of Code no F! For
the sake of our present and everlasting
welfare we must make an intelligent
and Christian choice. Standing, rs we
do, chin-deep in fictitious literature,
the first question that many of the
young people are asking me is: Shalt
we read novels?' reply: There are
novels that are pure, good, Christian,
elevating to the heart and ennobling
TO the life. But | have still further to
say that | believe that ninety-nine out
of the one hundred novels in this day
are baleful and destructive to the last
degree. A pure work of fiction is his
tory and poetry combined. 1t is a
history of things around us with the
licenses and the assumed names of
poetry. The world can never pay the
debt which it owes TO such fictitious
writer's as Hawthorne and Mckenzie.
and Landon and Hunt, and Arthur and
Marion IIarland, and others, whose
names are familiar TO all. The follies
Of hioh life were never better exposed
than by
MISS EDGEwORrH.
The memories o. the past were never
more faithfully cnbalmed than in the
writings of Walter Scott. Cooper's
novels are healthfully redolent with
the breath Of the sca-vced and the air
OF the American forest. Charles Kings
ley has smitten the morbidlty of the
world. and led II great many to apple-
ciate the poetry of sound health, strong
muscles and fresh air. Thackeray did
II grand work in caricaturing the pre-
tenders to gentility and high blood.
Dickens has built his W monument
in his books, which are an everlasting
plea for the poor and the anathema Of
injustice. No, | say, books like these
read alright times, and read in right
proportion with other books, cannot
help but be %ennobling and purifying;
but alas for the loathsome and impure
literature that has come upon this
country in the shape of novels, like n
freshet overlooking all the banks of
decency and common sense! They are
coming from some of the most ccle-
brated publishing houses II the coun-
try. They are coming with recon-
m~endation Of some of our religious
newspapers. They lie on your center
table TO curse your children and blast
with their internal fires generations
unborn. You find these books in the
desk of the school mss, in the trunk
Of the young man, in the steamboat
cabin. on the table of the hotel recep-
ton room. You see a light in your
child's room late at night. You sud
denly 90 in and say. What are you
doingp' II am reading" ''What are
You reading?" "A book You look
at the book; it is a bad book. ..Where
did you get itp" Il borrowed it."
Alas, there are always those abroad
who would like to loan your son or
daughter
A BOOK!
Everywhere, everywhere an unclean
literature. | charge upon it the de-
%struction OF ten thousand immortal
souls, and | bid you this morning wake
up TO the magnitude of the theme. |
shall take all the worlds literature
good novels and bad. travels true and
false, histories faithful and incorrect,
legends beautiful and monstrous. all
tracts, all chronicles. all epilogues, all
family, city, state and national librar-
ies-and pile them up in a pyramid of
literature, and theL | shall bring to bear
upon it some grand, glorious, infalli-
BILE. unmistakable Christian principles
! God help me to speak with reference
to my last account. and God help you
to listen.
| charge you, in the first place. to
stand aloof from all books that give
FALSE PICTURES
of human life. Life is neither a TRACE
DIV nor a farce. Men are not all either
knaves or heroes. Women are neither
angels or furies. And yet, if you de-
pended upon much of the literature Of
the day, you would get the idea that
life. instead of being something ear
nest. something practical. is a titful
and fantastic and eNtravagant thing.
How poorly prepared are that young
man and woman for the duties ofto-dav